Remainers fight back with a resignation... and Anna Soubry going ‘full Rambo’

Written by Dods staff on 17 July 2018 in Diary

Diary

Watch: Soubry had a message for Brexiteer MPs with 'gold-plated pensions and inherited wealth'.

Theresa May lost yet another government minister on Monday night amid the latest Tory in-fighting over Brexit.

Guto Bebb quit as a defence minister after the prime minister caved in to hardline Brexiters by accepting their amendments to the customs bill. May's latest move was said to be the final straw for the Remain-voting minister, who recently expressed his frustration over Boris Johnson and Jeremy Hunt making "unworthy and inflammatory" noises about business.

Meanwhile Anna Soubry put fresh fire in the belly of Remain-voting MPs with a passionate speech, saying hundreds of thousands of jobs were now at risk:

“And honourable members sitting on these benches in private conversations know that to be the case. And what they have said in those private conversations is the loss of hundreds of thousands of jobs will be worth I to regain our country’s sovereignty. You tell that to the people of my constituency!

“Nobody voted to be poorer. Nobody voted leave on the basis that somebody with a gold-plated pension and inherited wealth would take their job away from them.”

While fellow Tory MP Nicky Morgan called the speech “brilliant”, Joe Murphy was among the lobby journalists taking to Twitter with high praise for the oratory. “Anna Soubry has gone full Rambo against the whole Brexiteer army. Astonishing ballsy performance, whatever your view of in/out,” stated the Evening Standard political editor.

Naturally, Soubry’s hard Brexit-backing opponents had a different take. In the chamber, veteran right wing Tory MP Sir Edward Leigh hit back as only a right wing Tory MP would. He told his colleague: “I knew Margaret Thatcher, I worked with Margaret Thatcher. My honourable friend ain’t no Margaret Thatcher.”

Soubry then told her right honourable friend that "I don’t pretend to be able to walk in Margaret Thatcher’s boots".